Saturday, September 19, 1998 Last modified at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 19, 1998

Bosnian vote may mar West's plans

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

Associated Press

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Strenuous and costly Western efforts to patch up war-torn Bosnia could be wiped out if Serb hard-liners are declared the big winners of last weekend's elections.

Final results won't be known until next week, but initial indications are that extreme nationalist Nikola Poplasen has defeated the U.S. favorite, Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic.

Since Plavsic, a former nationalist, turned moderate about a year ago, the United States and other Western powers have invested millions of dollars into the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia, hoping to make Serbs forget their war-time goal of dividing Bosnia and joining Serbia.

In one of the costliest operations since World War II, the West has deployed 35,000 peacekeepers and invested billions of dollars a year to help rebuild Bosnia, but efforts to bring Serbs, Croats and Muslims together again have shown little result.

The West had hoped that the vote would cement Serb moderates in power and sideline extreme nationalists influenced by war crimes suspect Radovan

Karadzic, a former Bosnian Serb leader, and his policies of ethnic divisions.

During the election campaign, Plavsic and her allies spoke about the economy and plans to use Western money to raise living standards.

Poplasen and other hard-liners called the moderates Western stooges who want to unify Serbs with rival Muslims and Croats in a single state.

The United States has made no secret of its favorite. During her visit to Bosnia last month, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the U.S. only would assist those who help implement the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended Bosnia's 31/2-year war.

Such open support, however, could have backfired against Plavsic and her "Harmony" coalition because Serbs have a history of defiance against foreign influence.

Nationalist sentiment also may have been rekindled by clashes in Yugoslavia's Kosovo province, where the largely Muslim ethnic Albanian majority is seeking independence from Serb rule.